"When I first started on television (as a Fly Girl on In Living Color), people, and even my own manager at the time, would tell me I had to make all of these changes," physically, Lopez tells Cosmopolitan for Latinas' winter issue.

"But you have to stand up and say, 'There's nothing wrong with me or my shape or who I am. You're the one with the problem!' And when you can really believe that, all of a sudden other people start believing, too."

At home in the Bronx, however, the American Idol judge wasn't judged for her figure. "Early on, my family really made me love who I was and what I looked like. My body was nothing out of the ordinary in my neighborhood."